The nest on Jim’s twig wreath, just outside my window, is gathering more cornflower blue denizens. The parents are on high alert: one frequently mans the nearby pathway against intrusion, while one sits on the nest and swoops violently upwards if someone dares open the forest-green door to conduct human business.

In Gathering Blue, the young heroine has a magical artistic gift: her hands infuse colors into dye, which she spins into threads which memorialize a story through uncannily beautiful embroidery.

I think, very much due to my husband’s influence and outlook, that every one of us is blessed with some kind of magic–something only we can do.

It is not difficult to be overcome by the feeling that a crushing loss will forever outweigh such blessings and all that accompany them.

in my lifetimeleads back to this: the firesand the black river of losswhose other side

is salvation,whose meaningnone of us will ever know.To live in this world

you must be ableto do three things:to love what is mortal;to hold it

against your bones knowingyour own life depends on it;and, when the time comes to let it go,to let it go.

I told my daughter I could go two-for-three on that one.

From writing this blog I have heard from many people, some of whom I did not know and some of whom I met long ago. One of my best friends from high school once introduced me to a college friend of hers who is among those who have experienced a devastating loss of someone loved so much as to have been held “against your bones knowing your own life depends on it.” What she told me reminded me to consider what I have been lucky enough to find in life.

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About Stephanie

In her spare time, Stephanie works full-time, and then some, as an attorney. She has published articles and delivered talks in arcane fields like forensic evidentiary issues, jury instructions, and expert scientific witness preparation. She also is an adjunct professor at a law school on the banks of the Charles and loves that dirty water, as she will always think of Boston as her home.
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All content on this blog, unless otherwise attributed, is (c) 2012-2018 by Stephanie M. Glennon and should not be reproduced (in any form other than re-blogging in accordance with Wordpress protocol and the numerous other wee buttons at the bottom of each post) without the express permission of the domain holder.